noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The police and security service that dominated the South African government in the 1980s. uncountable
2. 2
   Any of the powerful security services of certain other governments in countries throughout the world. countable

Etymology

From security + -cracy (perhaps to rhyme with bureaucracy.

Related phrases

security servicesouth africa

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.